Dominick Bellizzi was an American jockey

Jockey

A jockey is an athlete who rides horses in horse racing or steeplechase racing, primarily as a profession. The word also applies to camel riders in camel racing.-Etymology:...

 who died at age twenty-two as a result of a horse racing

Horse racing

Horse racing is an equestrian sport that has a long history. Archaeological records indicate that horse racing occurred in ancient Babylon, Syria, and Egypt. Both chariot and mounted horse racing were events in the ancient Greek Olympics by 648 BC...

 accident.

An up-and-coming young jockey in Thoroughbred

Thoroughbred

The Thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in horse racing. Although the word thoroughbred is sometimes used to refer to any breed of purebred horse, it technically refers only to the Thoroughbred breed...

 racing, during 1933 Dominick Bellizzi rode to victory in the Futurity at Chicago's

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 Arlington Park

Arlington Park

Arlington Park is a horse race track in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, Illinois. Horse racing in the Chicago region has been a popular sport since the early days of the city in the 1830s, and at one time Chicago had more horse racing tracks than any other major metropolitan area...

 for Charles T. Fisher's

Charles T. Fisher

Charles Thomas Fisher was a Catholic American businessman and an automotive pioneer.Born in Norwalk, Ohio, Charles was the second son of Lawrence and Margaret Fisher. The family would grow to include seven boys and four girls...

 Dixiana Farm

Dixiana Farm

Dixiana Farm, founded in 1877, is an American Thoroughbred horse breeding farm in Lexington, Kentucky.-Barak G. Thomas:Formerly known as Hamilton Stud, Dixiana, owned by Barak G. Thomas, a Confederate soldier in the Civil War and later Sheriff of Fayette County, Kentucky, took the breeding world by...

. Competing on the New York circuit, he won the Adirondack Stakes and for the prominent Brookmeade Stable

Brookmeade Stable

Brookmeade Stable was a successful thoroughbred horse racing stable owned by heiress and socialite Isabel Dodge Sloane. Sloane first won using the name Brookmeade Stable at the Manly Memorial Steeplechase at Pimlico in 1924....

, owned by heiress Isabel Dodge Sloane

Isabel Dodge Sloane

Isabel Cleves Dodge Sloane was an American heiress and socialite who owned a major Thoroughbred horse racing stable and breeding farm....

, he captured both the Toboggan Handicap

Toboggan Handicap

The Toboggan Handicap is an American Thoroughbred horse race run annually during the first week of March at Aqueduct Race Track in Queens, New York. Open to horses aged three and older, the Grade III event is contested over at a distance of six furlongs on the dirt and offers a purse of $100,000 ...

 and the Whitney Handicap

Whitney Handicap

The Whitney Handicap is an American Grade 1 handicap race for Thoroughbred racehorses three years of age and older run at a distance of 1⅛ miles. In 2007, the Breeders' Cup Ltd...

.

In 1934, Dominick Bellizzi rode Brookmeade's colt High Quest

High Quest

High Quest was an American Thoroughbred racehorse best known for winning the 1934 Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the U.S. Triple Crown series of races....

 to victory in the Wood Memorial Stakes

Wood Memorial Stakes

The Wood Memorial Stakes is an American flat Thoroughbred horse race for three-year-olds held annually at Aqueduct Racetrack in Jamaica, New York. It is currently a Grade I race run over a distance of 9 furlongs on dirt....

, an important prep race for the Kentucky Derby

Kentucky Derby

The Kentucky Derby is a Grade I stakes race for three-year-old Thoroughbred horses, held annually in Louisville, Kentucky, United States on the first Saturday in May, capping the two-week-long Kentucky Derby Festival. The race is one and a quarter mile at Churchill Downs. Colts and geldings carry...

. However, trainer

Horse trainer

In horse racing, a trainer prepares a horse for races, with responsibility for exercising it, getting it race-ready and determining which races it should enter...

 Robert A. Smith opted to run the stable's Florida Derby

Flamingo Stakes

The Flamingo Stakes was an American Thoroughbred horse race for three-year-olds held annually in March at the Hialeah Park Race Track in Hialeah, Florida. Run over a distance of nine furlongs, the inaugural race took place in 1926 at the Tampa, Florida racetrack...

 winner Time Clock

Time clock

A time clock, sometimes known as a clock card machine or punch clock or time recorder, is a mechanical timepiece used to assist in tracking the hours an employee of a company worked. In regards to mechanical time clocks this was accomplished by inserting a heavy paper card, called a timesheet,...

 in the Derby and under Bellizzi, finished seventh.

A week after the Kentucky Derby, Dominick Bellizzi was back in New York where he rode Brookmeade's Psychic Bid

Psychic bid

Psychic bid is a bid in contract bridge that grossly misstates the power and/or suit lengths of one's hand. It is used deliberately to deceive the opponents. Normally, the psychic bid is made with a weak hand, overstating its overall strength, the length and strength in a particular suit, or both...

 in the Youthful Stakes at Jamaica Racetrack

Jamaica Racetrack

Jamaica Race Course was an American thoroughbred horse racing facility operated by the Metropolitan Jockey Club in Jamaica, New York. The track opened on April 27, 1903, a day which featured the inaugural running of the Excelsior Handicap. Eugene D. Wood, one of the founders and largest...

. As the field turned for home, the promising but still immature two-year-old colt veered wide and when Bellizzi attempted to guide him back in, the bit

Bit (horse)

A bit is a type of horse tack used in equestrian activities, usually made of metal or a synthetic material, and is placed in the mouth of a horse or other equid and assists a rider in communicating with the animal. It rests on the bars of the mouth in an interdental region where there are no teeth...

slipped in the horse's mouth. The motion caused the young jockey to lose his balance and he was thrown from his mount into the path of several onrushing horses. Severely injured, Bellizzi was rushed to hospital where he died a few days later.